Ending the pain

Saturday

Mar 23, 2013 at 6:00 AM

We at home have a hard time hearing about war.

The horrors tend to come in factual form: Numbers of casualties involving soldiers, civilians or the enemy. For American servicemen and servicewomen killed, we read how old they were, what uniform they wore. We study photos of smiling, strong people and feel sorrow for them and their families.

We know we know too little about them, and that the details would hurt.

Military suicides might be the most difficult of all war stories to absorb. When they happen on home turf, after a deployment is finished, we are shocked — or would be, if we didn’t hear about them so often. Here is a person who came out of war OK we think, and having returned, we can picture their circumstances much better than when they were in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Here, we realize with dismay, is one who survived physically and yet couldn’t find a way to go on living.

In war, life and death aren’t always opposites.

Capt. Peter Linnerooth is a stark example of post traumatic stress disorder that has a terrible ending.

In an Associated Press feature in the March 17 Sunday Telegram, Capt. Linnerooth of Minnesota is described as an Army psychologist who was immensely well-regarded during his service in Iraq. He had rapport with fellow soldiers and a knack for guiding them through their interior wars. Friends and associates credit him with helping numerous soldiers — struggling with having seen and experienced terrible things — come to some ease.

As indicated by the cover headline “One a day” on Time magazine’s July 23, 2012, issue, suicides by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are a serious problem. People with skills such as Capt. Linnerooth combat the numbers.

But he could not, in the end, help himself. He remained a dedicated father after returning home in 2007, but in noticeable ways, the article reports, he began to slip. He and his wife divorced; his work helping vets readjust suffered. In January, the 42-year-old Bronze Star recipient who had saved countless others from suicide shot and killed himself.

Wednesday marked 10 years since the Iraq War began. The costs and successes of that conflict, and the ongoing one in Afghanistan, cannot be easily summarized.

But some war stories tell us more than we can read in the faces of returning service men and women, and more than we can understand from the articles and statistics about the latest attacks overseas.

The story of Capt. Linnerooth’s maladjustment after Iraq and tragic, improbable-seeming suicide is repeated, in some form, for far too many. When death becomes desirable, war, for them, has twisted into something worse than war. The bravery and dedication Americans display overseas is inspiring and deeply admirable. But none of us can lose sight of the fact that keeping sufficient mental distance from war’s horrors even in the midst of them — and then transitioning safely to home — takes a kind of courage not even the best of us can always muster.

The Pentagon has many programs aimed at suicide prevention, but the rates among returning soldiers show they need more effective help than they’re getting. Capt. Linnerooth’s legacy may be to remind us that even those with top skills, training and experience can get lost adjusting to the challenges of carrying on a life at peace.